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A rather stern looking animal

My elder sister used to collect these animals when she was little and when she finished playing with them they were in such great condition that they were put away for the next children in the family which as it turns out is my daughters aged 5 and 2 .

The Polar Bear was originally bought from mothercare and they do still sell some of the Schleich range but not as many different ones as you can get from Amazon. This Polar Bear sells for just over £5 with free delivery at the moment which is decent price and there are also another adult and a couple of cuubs available in the Polar Bears.

Mammy Polar Bear is about 11cms in length and she is actually pretty heavy although still not as heavy as some of them like the Elephant, the weight of some of the animals is my only concern about my 2 year old playing with them incase she causes someone an injury.

The Polar Bear is white in colour but there is quite a lot of shading on her and marks in the rubber to represent her fur, there is loads of shading around her legs as she is posed as if she is waliking and I think the detailing is fantastic as it does look like she is walking along. The Polar Bear isn't the friendliest of the animals as her face makes her look pretty stern but again there is plenty of detail and she looks really realistic.

My girls love all of the animals and the animals we have are pretty much all in family units so we play with my youngest daughter counting legs and grouping the correct families together which she manages really well, my eldest daughter groups the animsl in different ways such as which ones have wings or which ones go in the water. We have looked up some of the animals on the internet after playing too to help her learn a bit more about the animals.

The naimlas are great fun just for play and both girls love playing with them and growling at each other and often have the animals chasing each other. These animals are great value, they are rreally robust there literally isn't a mark on the Polar Bear abd she is years old. The animals are both fun and educational too which as a Mother is my favourite type of toys, this whole range is recommended by my household.

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A great life like model that is well made fun to play with and prompts imaginative play and learning

This Schleich polar bear is one of several Schleich animals my son has in his toy box. He had chosen this polar last year when it was snowing as he wanted a white polar bear to play with and make an ice kingdom with penguins and other winter animals and some off cuts of material we had.

Schleich if you are unaware make very realistic animal models of animals from very touch plastic with huge amount of detailing on them. They are a German company and all the toys meet all the necessary European safety standards.

The polar bear we have is a female polar bear there was no gender shown on the toy stand where my son picked it up and he selected it purely on it being an adult polar bear rather than any gender. The polar bear itself has lovely detailing on it, there are marks and indentations all over the body to give the illusion of the polar bears thick fur coat. This for my son means it is nice and tactile to hold and it looks more realistic compared to some of his other animals such as the ones from the ELC. The bear is in a walking pose and the way it is crafted gives a good impression of the muscular tones of the bear.Despite the polar bears killing abilities the face of the polar bear actually looks a little sad to my son. This facial expression is one of the bear looking down with its mouth closed rather than it going to pounce on prey and I have to agree with him that it does look a little sad.

The paws are the other area that is wonderfully detailed with hints of claws the pads underneath all with shading in grey. The detailing of the claws on the paws is something my son likes as he can then pretend the polar bear is digging in the snow ( the bits of material) or it is using them to claw at another animal such as a seal.

The bear is a fixed pose animal and this doesn't seem to cause any problems for my son and he isn't put off the model by it not having moving limbs or heads and he just handles it and moves it around how he wants it too.

The size is nice and chunky for my son to hold and is easy for him to move it around. It is quite heavy and tough as and in nearly a years' worth of play there has been no damage to the model and the entire colour detailing on the face and paws remains nice and crisp with no chips in it. The only thing is some of the grooves for the fur have had the odd bits of mud stuck in it but after a good clean with a brush they do come clean.

The polar bear is great for helping him develop his imagination and he uses the bear in all sort of imaginative games such as the playing zoo's the bear chasing other animals and knocking them down to eat and even to break into his castle to eat his knights.

The other way we have used the polar bear is to help him develop his understand of them as we talk about where polar bears live what they eat and if he wants to know any other facts we look them up. My son is animal mad so this part of the bear use hasn't been too hard to prompt him with as he generally wants to know all about different animals and the fact that the polar bear is so life like only adds to his fascination with them.

Overall this is a great animal figure my son thinks it is wonderful to play with and its life like sculpting makes it a wonderful animal for him to have in his collection. It is available from Amazon or the ELC for around £5-6 a full 5 stars from my son and I.

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Product Details

The beautiful figures from Schleich are developed with the assistance of parents, teachers and children and are therefore especially designed for childrens hands. Schleich figures are wonderfully realistic and naturalistic, with intricate design and impressive crafsmanship. This enables children to experience the large variety of nature - from domestic animals on a farm to wild animals in the jungle.